> well, just with a different ideology. But my point was that
> what he's
> saying is hardly iconoclastic, even among many leftwing folks. Last
> semester, I taught multiple sessions with my classes talking
> about union
> corruption with pieces from Tom Geoghegan and Nelson
> Lichtenstein, but
> somehow they are both able to talk about such issues without
> this monolithic
> brush you get from reading Fitch.
>
> Maybe my reaction to Fitch is precisely because so little of
> what he writes
> is news to me, yet it seems so grossly out of context to
> everything else I
> know about labor history and present labor politics. Any set
> of "facts" can
> be "true", yet so fatally incomplete as to convey to the
> reader a completely
> false narrative.
Nathan, you seem to be missing forest among the trees. You sem to think that Fitch's argument is "unions are corrupt, therefore bad" - which indeed is is a frequent right wing line. But I do think that it is what he actually argues. What he does argue is that "unions are bad therefore theyr are corrupt." Therefore, his argument stands even if all his accounts of union corruption were exaggerated, misinterpreted and takes out of context.
To reiterate, Fitch is quite explict that his concern is not corruption itself, but the structural problems that lead to that corruption (cf. pages 71-75 of his book). Those structural problems are fragmentation, localism, and focus on control to good jobs instead of building a national labor movement. Those problems inevitably led to corruption despite honest attempts to "clean the house."
I agree that the book is not particularly well written and his main point is often buried in sensationalist details. But the argument that he is making can clearly be fleshed out of his narrative and it holds even if we dismissed most of his corruption stories. What he writes about the structure of US unionism - its fragmentation and localism is not only difficult to deny, but it is also true of many other US instituions. It is not the mob problem or corrupt union leadership problem, but the American problem. Fitch also claims that because business leadership (Alfred P. Sloane) was able to overcome that problem of compartmentalization, it it gained a substantial political influence. The unions did not and that is the source of their problems that include but is not limited to corruption. However, Fitch seems to suggest that some current reform efforts (Andrew Stern - SEIU) follow Sloan's blueprint and therefore are promissing (ch. 13 of his book).
So what is wrong with this argument? If you disagree, say so and explain why, and do not try to discredit his corruption stories which are not essential for his argument. Again, I agree that he dwells too much on corruption, probably because it sells, but that is the problem of his prose, not of his logic.
Wojtek